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When you went to work in a 4 person IT department that oversees 150 staff and 20 remote users, no matter what your title, who did you expect was going to be doing support work involving keeping them all going. You also said it only takes 25% to 50% of your time doing support work. So you still have 50% to 75% of your time to use for other more pleasant duties. The place must be running pretty well, or you would not have 50% to 75% of your time for other duties. The important thing in an IT department that supports a lot of workers as you do, someone is going to have to support them. And that means everyone in the department is going to spend time doing it regardless of title when it is only a 4 person support department.
I know a little about this, as my daughter was head if IT for a lot bigger operation than you are supporting, and she still had to get down and do support very often. They have called her on an emergency at night and when she was away on vacation on her company supplied cell phone when problems arouse. She was well into 6 figures salary wise, and there were times she was needed to handle support problems that were above her staff, even when she was in the hospital recovering from surgery.
What you are complaining about, is just the nature of the job. Learn to live with it.
I expect them to largely adhere to what they said the job was. While there is some latitude expected, the main focus of the job is a different role than what was described, in plain and clear language.
Probably 25% of the time is in meetings. Take the support hours out, and you're looking at two to three hours on the average day spent in administrative work, max. One day myself and the infrastructure admin were hauling servers out of a large office tower on a dolly most of the day. This kind of thing wasn't even remotely described in the job posting or the three interviews.
I was hired for an application role and what desk work I am doing is mostly on the infrastructure side, which is far different from my expertise. The infrastructure administrator is showing me a lot about his duties, which is certainly useful information, and I'm hoping the support person can take on some of the moving equipment, etc. I think part of me moving everything and crawling under desks and stuff like that is because I'm the youngest person on staff, but not the most junior by title.
But you are the most junior member of the 4 person team. Title is just a name for a position. Different companies have different titles for the same job. Always have, always will. They spent the time in the interview and requirements for being able to do the part of the job you like. But in a 4 person department for supporting as many people as your team supports, there is no way you would not be involved as you are.
Little update here. The senior admin went on vacation last week and I got through it without any major issues. I was able to figure out what I hadn't been shown, and while I was doing things in a roundabout fashion, things got done and no users had any complaints.
The big problem we're facing is that there is a lack of formal process and documentation on most everything we're doing. We had an issue with a fax system last week and there was some documentation available, but neither the manager (who is also semi-responsible for the system) nor my other team member knew where to find it, so we spent an hour or more on the phone with a vendor for something that's already documented. A once a month report I needed to run last Friday was not documented anywhere, and ended up having to be done over the weekend. I also ran into a test system I needed to know about last week that had no documentation anywhere about its existence. I asked about how to access it Monday and Tuesday, and haven't gotten a response. It's web based, so I can't get to it without the URL and no one will tell me what it is.
All the other staff have been here for years (20, 8, 5) so they know a lot of this stuff like the back of their hands, but if the one person whose domain that is happens to be out, you're just SOL. The new department head that came in is trying to bring in some sort of knowledge management system, so maybe there will be progress there.
I was given a project to complete that my manager wants the senior admin to be involved in, and it's due by end of week. I asked Monday morning what her availability was, she said she'd "get back with me," and the department head asked about it yesterday in a team meeting. I still haven't heard anything back from her regarding her schedule and now it's Wednesday. I don't even have another piece of the project I need that's supposed to be coming from my manager - he hasn't said whether or not he's done with his portion. I'm going to get something definitive from her today as I don't want this to be deferred until Friday evening in the event we have problems or have an emergency to take care of. I'm not confident I can get this done with the way things are going by Friday, which is going to damage my credibility.
The senior admin doesn't seem willing to help even on routine issues I haven't been shown, like the test system I mentioned earlier. Whenever I ask about something, she just does it, then I get no information about what she did to fix it. Sometimes I get the rolling eyes treatment. Most troubling is that I feel basically invisible and am not given enough work - during the group meeting yesterday, hardly anyone talked to me, and I rarely get a good morning, etc. Even the tier 1 support person seems to get more to do. Sometimes I'll ask a question to one of the other staff, they say they'll get back to me then get up and leave, and I have to consistently press to get any answers at all. The senior admin has been here for twenty years, so I don't know if she's just a bit territorial or what, and the place is generally somewhat slow-going, but no one is willing to share enough information to get me started on a project. I spent all Monday afternoon doing equipment moves, so that's still going on.
For whatever it's worth, I have little to nothing in common with the staff here. I'm not from the area, single, and no kids - and they're all married with kids, been around here for years, and at least fifteen years older than me. At least at my previous employer, I had a lot more in common with the local staff and people seemed to gel better. I'm not sure that plays into the dynamic, but it can't be helping as they generally talk about their kids and latest house project.
I'm still not confident this is the right fit going forward. I've yet to have a one on one with my manager, but if things don't pick up by the end of the month, I'm definitely going to get a meeting to see if we can get things moving along a little better. I'm also keeping my eyes open in other metros I'd rather been in.
You started this thread on 3-15-16. Are you saying you could not put a 30 minute meeting on your boss' Outlook calendar for a 1 on 1?
I didn't want to be the squeaky wheel so soon in. Still, after three months there doesn't seem to be much changing. Maybe it's time to see if he has some suggestions.
I started a new position as an application administrator in an IT department six weeks ago. So far, probably 25%-50% of my time is spent in desktop support duties - PC moves, printer repairs, AV assistance, imaging, etc. I spent half the day today moving PCs and equipment, moving cables around on the patch panel and switch, and another hour helping a user provision mobile email. Yesterday I spent an hour troubleshooting a printing issue in Word at someone's desk. Between the desktop support and meetings, I'm barely learning anything about the applications I am supposed to be the administrator of, and the other administrator is taking a week of vacation soon. I don't feel anywhere near prepared for it and have no one to ask while this person is gone. The pay is commensurate with administrator position, not desktop support.
Nowhere in the job description was this amount of desktop support for routine COTS issues specified. Had I known this, I wouldn't have taken the position. I did routine support for years and want out of that, and took this position because it was an administrator, not support, position. We did hire a tier 1 support person and she is helping, but it still appears there's going to be a ton of this support expected overall. This is a four person IT team, supporting about 150 staff with about twenty remote users.
Overall, the role just appears to be a bad fit. How long should I wait before discussing this with the manager? I feel like the position was marketed as more senior than its actually working out as. I'm thinking of waiting until the six month mark to see if this washes out, but we are scheduled to move an office into another building in the summer, which is going to require at least two weekends to do with no comp time. I don't mind to help on an emergency basis, but desktop support has probably become the biggest focus of time at this point, and it feels a bit like I was baited and switched.
Did you expect to sit around surfing the web for the other 50% of the time once your "admin" duties are complete? I can see the other three people in your department giving you dirty looks if they are doing what you seem is "beneath" you. Why don't you use some of your free time to put some procedures around the things everyone seems to already know? If the team saw you contributing something that benefited the entire department, they would not care that you were not pitching in to help move equipment or troubleshoot COTS issues.
I didn't want to be the squeaky wheel so soon in. Still, after three months there doesn't seem to be much changing. Maybe it's time to see if he has some suggestions.
Asking for a 1 on 1 is not being a squeaky wheel. You need clarification and direction from management. At this point, YOU are becoming part of the problem. Arrange the meeting today.
The ol' bait and switch. I'm going through a similar thing, with job duties being wildly different and actually being lent out to other groups due to lack of work. If you talk to your boss he'll likely feed you some corporate doublespeak.
I need to stay where I am for ~2 years so I'm just casually planning my exit for when that time comes.
Had a meeting with the manager on Friday afternoon. This was my first one on one since I started three months ago.
A week or so back, an internal employee needed a password reset on a system late Friday afternoon once everyone else had left. My team typically does not do this reset, another team does, but nowhere was there any documentation on how to reset the password (it isn't obvious) nor did I know who the stakeholder was, and no one was around to ask. I got the reset done, but apparently tripped some sort of audit flag on the account not knowing how to use the system properly. He wasn't upset, but said to not do anything unless I already know how to do it or it's documented. I mentioned that if the process is critical, it needs to be clearly documented on what to do to avoid having audit problems. I drew up a document for it after the fact.
The senior administrator isn't being any more helpful. Several projects were started and finished over the last six weeks or so which would have been perfect for me to be on from beginning to end, but she won't let me assist, nor is she offering for me to help or even take a look at how she's doing something when she's doing it. She either doesn't want me involved, or simply forgets I'm around and does it all herself. I've become more assertive with "hey, could I see how this goes?" and I'm not getting much in the way of any response at all.
I told our manager that while I know she's busy and sometimes she gets pulled in too many directions, that I wasn't being involved in projects or communicated with much. Manager seemed to sense that I was struggling and not getting much assistance from the other coworker. At this point, I think me, the manager, and the other admin need to sit down and see if we can get more communication going. I'm losing confidence this is going to work by the day.
I didn't want to be the squeaky wheel so soon in. Still, after three months there doesn't seem to be much changing. Maybe it's time to see if he has some suggestions.
I think you are the squeaky wheel. I have been doing IT for around 30 years. I still have to help people clear jams and troubleshoot desktop stuff from time to time. It is part of the job. It is part of being the "computer guy".
If you do not like the position I would not speak with anyone. Who do you think will do what you are doing even if they agree with you?
I would just leverage this situation and look for a better job. But you should consider that you should change your expectations a little. IT is customer service.
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